JOEY BISHOP BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:

Joey Bishop was born on February 3rd, 1918 in The Bronx, New York with the birth name Joseph Abraham Gottlieb.   He was the youngest of five children born to parents who had immigrated to the united States from Eastern Europe.  Joey was raised in Philadelphia and as a young boy he took tap dancing lessons as well as learned how to play such instruments as the banjo and mandolin. 
 
He chose not to complete High School and instead began his pursuit as a career in the entertainment world.  He started with working vaudeville doing a comedy act with one of his brothers.  Later he joined on to another comedy group called, "The Bishop Trio". 
 
During World War II, he took a break from pursuing his career to join the United States Army but directly after he completed his service he went right back to pursuing what he loved best, comedy and entertaining. 
 
He was a very talented ab-libber and was given the opportunity to be an opening act for such stars as Frank Sinatra.  Soon his popularity was increasing and by the mid 1950's he was getting offered jobs to host talk shows and game shows such as, "what's My line?" (1950) and was a guest host on, "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962). 
 
He was gaining quite a fan base and soon  was also being offered television sitcom roles and even got his own show, "The Joey Bishop Show" (1961) which lasted four seasons.  Joey also had on his resume a number of film roles such as, "The Deep Six" (1958), "The Naked and the Dead" (1958), "Onionhead' (1958), "Ocean's Eleven" (1960) and Sergeants 3" (1962). 
 
Bishop was also a talented writer and wrote a lot of the material for his close friends, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford who were all four also known as the, "Sinatra's Comic".  The four men would perform in Las Vegas, Nevada together and Bishop was involved in writing some of their material. 
 
Bishop later had a disagreement with his friend Sinatra and went his own way to continue pursuing his career goals.  He appeared on a number of films in the mid 60's such as, "Johnny Cool" (1963), "Texas Across the River" (1966), "Who's Minding the Mint?" (1967) and "Valley of the Dolls" (1967).  His latest film roles were on, "The Delta Force" (1986), "Betsy's Wedding" (1990) and "Mad Dog Time" (1996). 
 
He married only once in 1941 to Sylvia Ruzga and they have a son Larry who grew up to also work as an actor and director in the industry.  In 1999, Bishop lost his wife to cancer and he never remarried again but did have a companion, Nora Garbotti.   On October 17th, 2007, Joey Bishop passed away in Newport Beach, California after suffering to organ failure. 

 
Filmography

1996 Mad Dog Time 
1990 Betsy's Wedding
1987 Glory Years 
1986 The Delta Force 
1985 Murder, She Wrote
1985 Hardcastle and McCormick 
1981 Trapper John, M.D.
1976 Chico and the Man 
1972 The Dean Martin Comedy Hour 
1967 Valley of the Dolls 
1967 Who's Minding the Mint? 
1967 Get Smart 
1967 A Guide for the Married Man 
1966 Texas Across the River 
1961-1965 The Joey Bishop Show
1963 Johnny Cool 
1963 The Dick Powell Theatre
1962 Sergeants 3
1961 The Danny Thomas Show
1960 The DuPont Show of the Month
1960 Ocean's Eleven 
1959 Richard Diamond, Private Detective 
1958 Onionhead
1958 The Naked and the Dead 
1958 The Deep Six